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Free Music & Music Download

Free Music - Music Download

A music download is the transferral of a song from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment.

Popular examples of online music stores that sell digital singles and albums include the iTunes Store, Napster, Zune Marketplace, Amazon MP3, Nokia Music Store, TuneTribe, Kazaa and eMusic. Paid downloads are sometimes encoded with Digital Rights Management that restricts making extra copies of the music or playing purchased songs on certain digital audio players. They are almost always compressed using a lossy codec (usually MPEG-1 Layer 3 or Windows Media), reducing file size and therefore bandwidth requirements.

However, this may cause an apparent loss in quality to a listener when compared to a CD, and cause compatibility issues with certain software and devices. Uncompressed files and losslessly compressed files are available at some sites.

As of 2006, digital music sales are estimated to have reached a trade value of approximately US$2 billion, with tracks available through 500 online services located in 40 countries, representing around 10 percent of the total global music market. Around the world in 2006, an estimated five billion songs, equating to 38,000 years in music, were swapped on peer-to-peer websites, while 509 million were purchased online. As of January 2011, Apple's iTunes Store alone saw $1.1 billion of revenue in fiscal Q1.

Music downloads offered by artists

Some artists allow their songs to be downloaded ( FREE ) directly from their websites. This is the case. So do it for free.

Challenges to legal music downloads

Even legal music downloads have faced a number of challenges from artists, record labels and the Recording Industry Association of America. In July 2007, the Universal Music Group decided not to renew their long-term contracts with iTunes. This legal challenge was primarily based upon the issue of pricing of songs, as Universal wanted to be able to charge more or less depending on the artist, a shift away from iTunes' standard 99 cents per song pricing. Many industry leaders feel that this is only the first of many show-downs between Apple Inc. and the various record labels.

Billboard Music Award

The Billboard Music Award is an honor given by Billboard magazine, the preeminent publication covering the music business. The Billboard Music Awards show had been held annually in December until it went dormant in 2007, but it returned in May 2011. Janet Jackson has won the most awards.

Contents

1 Award process

2 Awards

2.1 Categories

2.1.1 Current categories

2.1.2 Defunct categories (1990–2006)

2.2 Recipients

2.2.1 Artist of the Year awards

2.2.2 Billboard Century Awards

2.2.3 Icon Award

2.2.4 Billboard Millennium Award

2.2.5 Artist of the Decade

2.3 Award record-holders

2.3.1 Artists with the most total wins

2.3.2 Most awards in a single year

2.3.3 Most wins within a category

3 The awards show

3.1 Venues

3.2 Hosts

4 See also

Award process

Unlike other awards, such as the Grammy Award, which determine nominations as a result of the highest votes received, the Billboard Music Awards finalists are based on year-end chart performance according to Nielsen data for sales, downloads and airplay. Awards were given for the top album/artist/single in different genres. Since 1992, the awards also give out a Billboard Century Award—the magazine's highest honor for creative achievement and named for Billboard's centennial in 1994. The award was renamed the Icon Award in 2011.

Awards

Categories

From 1990–2006, the show had the same categories and category names every year. In 2011, for the first time, all of the awards were renamed to "Top Award Title". The "of the year" portion of each category title no longer exists, and many of the awards have been further renamed. Other awards, including both "crossover" awards (No. 1 Classical Crossover Artist and No. 1 Classical Crossover Album) were discontinued.

Current categories

Album of the Year

Artist of the Year

Breakout Artist (Since 2011)

Century Award (2011: renamed to Icon Award)

Christian Artist

Christian Song

Concert Venue Award

Country Album

Country Artist

Digital Track

Duo/Group of the Year

Female Artist of the Year

Hot 100 Airplay Single of The Year

Hot 100 Female Artist

Hot 100 Group

Hot 100 Male Artist

Hot 100 Producer

Hot 100 Single of the Year

Hot 100 Songwriter

Latin Album

Latin Artist

Latin Song

Mainstream Top 40 Track

Male Artist of the Year

Millennium Award (Since 2011)

New Male R&B Artist

New R&B Artist

R&B Artist

R&B Producer

R&B Songwriter

R&B/Hip-Hop Group

Rap Artist

Touring Venue Award

Defunct categories (1990–2006)

New Male Artist

New Female Artist

New Group of the Year

Modern Rock Artist

Modern Rock Track

No. 1 Classical Crossover Artist

No. 1 Classical Crossover Album

Independent Album Artists

Independent Album

Bestselling Single

No. 1 Rhythmic Top 40 Title

Soundtrack Single

Recipients

Artist of the Year awards

1990: M.C. Hammer

1991: Mariah Carey

1993: Garth Brooks

1994: Ace of Base

1995: TLC

1996: Alanis Morissette

1997: LeAnn Rimes

1998: Usher

1999: Backstreet Boys

2000: Destiny's Child

2001: Destiny's Child

2002: Nelly

2003: 50 Cent

2004: Usher

2005: 50 Cent

2006: Chris Brown

2007: Akon*

2008: Chris Brown*

2009: Taylor Swift*

2010: Lady Gaga*

2011: Eminem

* received from Billboard magazine at the end of the year (no award show)

Billboard Century Awards

1992: George Harrison

1993: Buddy Guy

1994: Billy Joel

1995: Joni Mitchell

1996: Carlos Santana

1997: Chet Atkins

1998: James Taylor

1999: Emmylou Harris

2000: Randy Newman

2001: John Mellencamp

2002: Annie Lennox

2003: Sting

2004: Stevie Wonder

2005: Tom Petty

2006: Tony Bennett

2007–2010: no award

Icon Award

2011: Neil Diamond

Billboard Millennium Award

2011: Beyoncé Knowles

Artist of the Decade

1999: Mariah Carey

2009: Eminem

Award record-holders

Artists with the most total wins

ArtistNumber

of awards

Janet Jackson33

Michael Jackson31

Whitney Houston30

Mariah Carey30

Garth Brooks25

Backstreet Boys24

Usher22

Mary J. Blige20

Destiny's Child19

Lady Gaga19

Rihanna18

Eminem17

Madonna16

Carrie Underwood16

Enrique Iglesias16

Taylor Swift14

LeAnn Rimes12

Adele11

Beyoncé Knowles11

Katy Perry10

Alicia Keys10

Britney Spears10

Most awards in a single year

ArtistNumber

of awardsYear

Usher142004

Michael Jackson131983

Whitney Houston111993

Kelly Clarkson112005

Janet Jackson101990

Destiny's Child92001

Mary J. Blige92006

Lady Gaga92009

Ke$ha82010

Ashanti82002

Alicia Keys82004

Most wins within a category

ArtistCategory

Michael JacksonMale artist

Backstreet BoysGroup

RihannaInternational artist

Garth BrooksCountry artist

EminemRap artist

The awards show

Since its inception (created by Rick Garson), the BMAs had been telecast on the Fox network; however due to contractual expirations and other unforeseen circumstances, the awards were canceled for 2007. Plans for a new version of the awards in 2008 (in association with AEG Live) fell through, and the BMAs were not held until 2011.

On February 17, 2011, Billboard announced that it would bring the BMAs back to television, moving from its original home on Fox to its new network, ABC, on May 22, 2011.

Venues

1990–1991: The first two years were shot at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, and aired later.